France to perform CPR on Scarlett Johansson’s image — award for film career!

I wonder who cooked this one up? Just after being cut loose by Oxfam, and becoming the darling of the right wing and a heroine of the settlers, because of her support for a business that operates out of an illegal Jewish settlement in the West Bank, actress Scarlett Johansson is to receive a big honor in France later this month. The news is in Figaro, which says the honor is the leading award in French cinema and will recognize the actress’s career achievement, at 29, and here is Broadway World:

Variety reports that Scarlett Johansson, who will next be seen on the big screen in Luc Besson’s “Lucy,” will be the recipient of France’s honorary Cesar Award.

She will join past Hollywood stars such as Dustin Hoffman, Kate Winslet and Kevin Costner who have also been honored with the distinguished honor. The 29-year old star may be the youngest star to receive this award.

Yes, very ‘strange’ and ‘coincidental’, but to play Devil’s advocate, her husband is French and she has spoken of her willingness to live at least some of her time in France and learn the language. So it could be the French version of giving Obama the Nobel peace price; not for what has been done but as an expectation of what is to come.

(And like Obama’s peace prize, it could turn out to be a huge political embarrassment and a disastrous mistake to seriously undermine the credibility of the institution).

Her husband is French? I think not. Johansson was married to Ryan Reynolds but they divorced. I don’t think she remarried.

And though we perhaps read too much into these things, it’s hard to see why Johansson should be given an award for her acting, seeing as she is at best a very mediocre actress. She’s been a big star for about 10 years, but still has no major dramatic roles or Oscar nominations, let alone awards, to her name.

“She’s been a big star for about 10 years, but still has no major dramatic roles or Oscar nominations, let alone awards, to her name.”

Maximus, she won Best Actress for the film “Her” 3 months ago at the Rome Cinema Festival, and that was before the Oxfam incident. In September, she stole the show at the Venice Film Festival with her looks, shape and a dress that didn’t need any clicking-on:

looks interesting, but I guess I am going to have to fork over the 3 quid for the full article. piterberg is worth it though.

besson is a creep of the bigger is always better variety of cinema (see the brief on the production of ‘lucy’).

Filming . . . will take place for the most part at the Cité du Cinéma, the brand new megastudio located on the outskirts of Paris. According to EuropaCorp CEO Christophe Lambert, this film will have the highest budget in the history of EuropaCorp. He also stated that Luc Besson has never put so many special effects in a movie. . . . Filming in Taipei, Taiwan [includes] Taipei locations [such as] Taipei 101, the world’s fifth tallest skyscraper.

ugh.

‘nikita’ was well done, but it descended from there into the pederast’s fantasy of ‘leon the professional’ (that movie almost makes me feel sympathy for portman, but with her background, it looks as if her exploitation/ascension was predestined.) and ‘lucy’ looks to include the recurring theme of the violence-induced birth of the ‘new man/human’ found in ‘nikita’, ‘leon’, ‘messenger’, the ‘5th element’, etc. a mixture of trauma and narcissism.

There are many more deserving actresses who actually have won the big awards, for instance Halle Berry who’s married to a Frenchman and has a Golden Globe for Dorothy Dandridge and an Oscar for Monster’s Ball to her credit.

They didn’t have to look very far to find someone much more deserving than Scarlett.

But then what was required was a Zionist actor who’s gifted in delivering Zionist propaganda and whitewashes Israeli Apartheid real well.

based on specualtion it will be bought by a non Israeli company. How’s that Hop? Sodastream is looking more attractive to investors and speculators on the grounds it will cease to be associate with Israel.

Out of curiosity, if a non-Israeli company sympathetic to BDS bought it, are they free to build a plant in a Palestinian controlled area? I’ve wondered how much control they have in bringing international business to the Palistinian controlled areas for jobs.

Out of curiosity, if a non-Israeli company sympathetic to BDS bought it, are they free to build a plant in a Palestinian controlled area?

Area B would be impossible and Area A suicidal, at best, considering the economic strangulation imposed by Israel on the OPT, starting with the fact that all imports (raw materials) and exports (finished products) would be subject to Israeli control, and even distribution within the “Palestinian-controlled” areas would be extremely difficult. Many a Palestinian company has failed for these very reasons.

Notwithstanding the usual logistics hurdles you mentioned, Shmuel, it would also depend on the new owners being amenable to helping feather the right nests. It’s in the ME after all and this is how the cookie crumbles.

also interesting:
Perhaps the most absurd part of the paragraph, and the column, is when Cohen argues that “there is in history no right of return.” In history! Let’s set aside for a moment the fact that the right of return is actually written into the aforementioned historical document. Cohen goes back in history (to a time when Turkey was still referred to as “Asia Minor”) to show that some ethnic groups did not, in fact, go home. But why go back so far Roger? A much more recent instance exists. Take for example NATO’s position on Kosovo refugees outlined in this far more recent article about the matter from 1999:

NATO has demanded that Mr. Milosevic withdraw his troops from Kosovo, allow several hundred thousand ethnic Albanian refugees to return to the homes from which they have been hounded, and permit the deployment of a military force with NATO at its core. For now, the future political status of Kosovo has been set aside as an issue (emphasis added).
Why would Roger Cohen gloss over this far more recent instance and go back decades prior to defend ethno-majoritarian nationalism by making the bold claim that there’s no such return “in history!?” It’s all very strange if you ask me. Even more so, in fact, when you consider that the author of the above referenced article on Kosovo refugees was none other than Mr. Cohen.http://blog.thejerusalemfund.org/2013/01/roger-cohens-blight-liberal-zionism.html

Q: Why would Roger Cohen gloss over this far more recent instance and go back decades prior to defend ethno-majoritarian nationalism by making the bold claim that there’s no such return “in history!?”

R: When truth and honesty are the first two human elements to be tossed out of the imaginary window, nestled deep inside our mutual consciousnesses, why expect an unbiased outcome?

To be honest, Cohen is absolute not the only person to rely on this tactic, but his reasoning is like him saying that ‘American Airline’ did a good job on 9/11, because it dropped people off at the office… On the face of it, hmmm, but we both know that such a concept is morbid and ludicrous.

This is not going to help her not on the international stage or with her fellow actors who have worked lifetimes to achieve the same reward, people realize the only reason she is receiving this is because her stance on Soda stream its only going to help sink her career even further. People in Hollywood may not say much but she will know in her heart she’s a traitor and that she put business before humanitarian works. I DON’T FEEL SORRY FOR HER SHE MADE THE CONSCIOUS DECISION TO END OXFAM OVER THIS So she may as well enjoy her reward..she has to live with this ..

UpSIDEdown, when she was getting several nominations and the Best Actress award at the Rome festival, her faux-pas with Oxfam hadn’t yet happened and no one was questioning her talent. It’s doubtful she’s getting the French award because France is “pro-settlers”. The French just love to give awards to American actors. Maybe it has something to do with the current loving relationship between Obama and Hollande and maybe it’s to give a boost to her upcoming major French movie. To pin the award on her sticking with SS is somewhat absurd.

I don’t know how much depends-or should depend- on the whims-or more likely, career calculations-of some high priced actress Hollywood actress, even if she has a humanitarian image. Even if this whole chapter damages her brand, there are several dots to connect before it has any positive effect on the lives of Palestinians. Other stars will probably avoid the whole Palestinian issue quietly rather than make a stand for Palestians-unless the paycheck is fat enough. And if there is a silent boycott of A list celebrities in Israel, how will that help Palestians. I see a similar flaw in much of the BDS project-there are a lot of things we aren’t supposed to do, but how is not buying Sabra hummus sending a clear message? There’s a lot of reasons why someone wouldn’t buy Sabra hummus.

just, I don’t think joer is saying to drop BDS but that it should be kept in its proper perspective. Whether Scarlett is a good actress or a bad one should not be determined by her political or financial decisions. I too think she’s a bum, but not for having abandoned Oxfam as much as for her trying to help the squatting SS whether out of conviction or for the cash. There are other parties that deserve to be pelted about their involvement with the settlement enterprise much more than this actress.

This is already happening: “Other stars will probably avoid the whole Palestinian issue quietly rather than make a stand for Palestians-unless the paycheck is fat enough. And if there is a silent boycott of A list celebrities in Israel, how will that help Palestians.” The ScarJo fiasco will just give more celebrities the incentive to avoid Israel rather than surrender to temptation/pressure to impress Zionist employers.

While, in the past, no one but hardcore Zionists noticed if a celebrity headlined a Friends of the IDF fundraiser, performed in Sun City/Tel Aviv, endorsed settlement products, in the internet age the broader public not only hears about such celebrity doings, but begins to make the connection to other bits of information about Apartheid Israel. More celebrities will hesitate to lend their image to Brand Israel, no matter what the short-term payoff.

Just:
The choice isn’t between begging celebrities to notice people suffering or doing nothing. And right now BDS is pretty much doing nothing. Its whole focus is what not to do-with no way to express support.

Good article by Blumenthal on ScarJo, PEPs and Hollywood (love the PEP blinders graphic!). I would only quibble slightly about how innocent a time it was to support Israel in 1978:

If there was any date that marked the high point of PEP-ism in Jewish-American life, it was May 8, 1978. That evening, a star-studded cast appeared before an audience of millions of Americans in The Stars Salute Israel at 30, a nationally televised gala beamed live by ABC from the Los Angeles Music Center.

The stage at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion was filled with Hollywood A-listers, including outspoken liberals like Paul Newman, Anne Bancroft and Barry Manilow. None were asked to ponder the cruelty of Israel’s 11-year-old occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip before signing on to appear in the gala. Back then, celebrities leapt at the opportunity to sing and dance for Israel, if not out of genuine conviction, then at least out of careerist considerations.
…
As the discussion on Israel-Palestine slips from their control, the greying band of PEPs has nowhere to turn but the past. All they have are dreams of the magical night in 1978 when Streisand stood in the spotlight of Hollywood, sang for Israel, and the nation cheered. They are marching forward against BDS in a rosy haze of nostalgia, united by the terror of what lies beyond.

The Stars Salute Israel event was just months after Vanessa Redgrave’s televised speech upon winning the award for Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars:

And I salute you, and I pay tribute to you, and I think you should be very proud that in the last few weeks you’ve stood firm, and you have refused to be intimidated by the threats of a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums whose behaviour is an insult to the stature of Jews all over the world and their great and heroic record of struggle against fascism and oppression.

And I salute that record and I salute all of you for having stood firm and dealt a final blow against that period when Nixon and McCarthy launched a worldwide witch-hunt against those who tried to express in their lives and their work the truth that they believe in. I salute you and I thank you and I pledge to you that I will continue to fight against anti-Semitism and fascism.[20]

Redgrave referred to “the threats of a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums” in one of the highest-rated broadcasts in a year. No matter how star-studded its tribute, even with Streisand singing, hasbarists were not likely to get as many eyeballs to tune in for Israel’s facelift a few months later.

Even so, Blumenthal is right that there was no downside for celebrities to participate in such an event. Whereas Palestinians were widely perceived by Americans as terrorists or stereotypes from Newman’s “Exodus” then, more and more Americans have become aware of the realities for Palestinians under Israeli occupation since then.

A month after “The Stars Salute Israel at 30,” a bomb targeted an LA theater where Redgrave’s documentary, “The Palestinian,” was to be screened.

Aie Aie Aie!
Doesn’t surprise me a bit. Look..I was an actor in France (cinema and TV) for 25 years. Know the business inside out. All you need is a cursory look at the names of the heavy hitters, producers, studio executives and film directors, and you’ll get a good snap of the state of things.

People say that Scarlett Johansson is a very good actress, but I do not recall seeing her in a film and being impressed by her. Part of the reason may be that when I look over the list of films she has appeared in, they do not appear to be the types of films I generally watch. I did see Lost in Translation (2003), but I was not impressed with her or the film.Does anyone have a suggestion as to a film where Johansson demonstrates her allegedly excellent acting skills?

Interesting article based on an interview with Rankin in today’s Independent about the Oxfam/SJ/SS fuss that pretty much says what I was already thinking. If you want to work in Zionist dominated Hollywood – keep away from human rights in Palestine.

Support Mondoweiss’s independent journalism today

Mondoweiss brings you the news that no one else will. Your tax-deductible donation enables us to deliver information, analysis and voices stifled elsewhere. Please give now to maintain and grow this unique resource.